Three Stars with a BANGLE and a bauble.

Plotnik finally got his review posted for "A Civil War Christmas." The more he thought about it the more he decided that the play has some good things going for it and that it deserves to edge across the Julie Andrews Line with a Three Star rating.

On San Francisco Theater Blog, three stars is the minimum for a recommendation to see a show. It's the theater equivalent of the Mendoza Line, which baseball fans know is named after a weak hitter named Mario Mendoza, who one year became the only starting player in baseball history to hit under .200. This means that if he came to bat ten times, he averaged less than two base hits.

This seems worse than it is -- the great majority of hitters bat below .300, which is to say they only do slightly better than Mario Mendoza. But since they might come to the plate 300-400 times in a season, they might get thirty or forty more base hits.

The Julie Andrews Line is Plotnik's Mendoza Line. Below Julie Andrews, don't waste your money. There are few hits here.

But it's not always that easy. So Plotnik hedges his bets with BANGLES of PRAISE, and baubles of despair.

BANGLES are like a Plus. Baubles are like a Minus. A review might have several BANGLES or baubles, modifying the amount of stars it has earned.

Plotnik is always thinking about how hard it is to mount a production, how much money and time and devotion it takes.

But that doesn't give them a right to bore us silly and still take our money.

But Plotnik and Ducknik receive free Opening Night tickets. It doesn't cost them anything.

This is why Plotnik always buys a cookie at intermission.

Yes, it IS!

Sometimes, truth be told, the cookies are the determining factor for who gets over the Julie Andrews Line.

The cookies at Lucie Stern Theater were good.

So The SF Theater Blog's final rating for "A Civil War Christmas" is ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG baub. It's right on the Mendoza Line for sure, but sneaks across by two chocolate chips.